Isolania Reviews

Good game, sadly no one to sex

Couldn't pass the game, but its alot of fun!

Patience and Pay off Thats the best way to describe my experience with Isolania so far. This game is dripping with mystery and requires you to truly think about how you play the game to progess. Getting into the motion and realising that you need to think about how you spend your time, where to take risks, and what questions to ask in this game is extremely fun. The game play is solid, the voice acting has character and the graphics are impressive for an indie studio. You'll spend a majority of your time in this game learning, and though it takes a while, its absolutely worth the progression. They key here is patience. There is plenty to do while you snowball your way into the deeper lore of Isolania and from where I am in the game, I KNOW its getting deeper, the writing is very good! I'm still playing, but my imagination is captivated, WHAT IS THE SECRET OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD? WHAT IS REALLY GOI-- [This message has been edited by Central Authority]

Game kept crashing during ending scene. No idea how it ends. Good Game otherwise.

Too many bugs. Cannot get scanned, cannot exercise, cannot go to work. Cannot avoid being penalized....

I'll update this review as I play the game. I'm only on Day 4 but I would absolutely recommend this game at this point. It's inspired by one of my favorite games of all time - Presentable Liberty and it wears it's influence on its sleeve. You are in a cell that you cannot leave (other than for a little bit of work time each day where you solve a puzzle). It's very much like prison in that you have a routine that you need to follow in order to get through the day without going insane. It captures the feeling of solitude and being trapped pretty well. There are a lot of different meters that you have to keep track of in order to keep your character healthy but if you're clever they're easily managed in the early game. Save your food as long as possible, use some of the water available to you (but watch you don't run out). Play games and watch TV to pass time. Buy stuff from the store. The games you can play are pretty hard just like in Presentable Liberty but you'll have plenty of time to perfect them lol I don't usually post reviews THIS early in a game but it's been a blast so far and gives me great memories of playing Presentable Liberty. I hope anyone out there, regardless if you've played Presentable Liberty or not, gives this game a go.

A really interesting concept marred by bugs, a sketchy economy and a bad saving system. Bugs encountered in the first 90 minutes: 2 crashes Ministry sent a letter scolding me for not showing up to work in addition to the letter they already sent for being late (I did show up, I was just late) The position where you have to stand to be scanned is almost pixel-perfect, and the tutorial does not adequately explain this or prepare you for it. Running into walls makes your camera flicker Saving system: The game charges you in-game money to perform a manual save, so players will naturally be stingy with their saves. This system could work if the game was extremely stable and had a near-zero percent chance of crashing; however, as demonstrated by my 2 crashes in 90 minutes, the game is not stable, so I ended up losing a lot of progress each time it crashed. Economy: You get $100 per day for working. At first, this seems pretty fair, since the most expensive item in the store is $500. As soon as you unlock the first playable arcade game though, the inflation begins. You can win $5,000 for beating a 3 minute game. All of a sudden, the work money seems less impressive. Then, the store introduces a toy that costs $25,000, and a bunch of new arcade games to play. Now the work money seems really pathetic, and you start to just go for the fun of working. If this game was meant to be a crypto-millionaire simulator, then this would be a really effective message. However, I don't think this is what the developer was trying to communicate. I would like to unravel the story by playing more, however, in its current state, the game is simply too frustrating.

it can be actually a really good game i like the theme and story. but too many damn bugs make it annoying and unplayable. they keep updating and fixing the bugs but none of them are solved so yeah here i am

brilliant game it will test your patience with great mini games in a game pick what you do wisely or you wont have the ending you are hoping for will you find freedom or will the Central Authority trick you you decide....

How can a lonely game with one room have so many hours of enjoyable escapism, find out, if we are happier apart in ISOLANIA. Well, apparently anything can be good when you have a stellar world-building that probes your mind for every feeling of joy and sorrow it can find. You are a new podder in a society where nobody is allowed to leave their designated cell, the sadness is the sickness that you get from other people, and you must stay inside because isolation is the key to salvation. Everything that you need to stay alive is done within your room, and if you question your existence, there are consequences. I want to say it took the game maybe 4 seconds to get my attention because the voice of 'authority' is so compelling, and for the most part it manages to maintain that level of story-telling, even during the moments of downtime, I was always looking forward to the next day. Now the game has a 'waiting' aspect to it which usually amounts to several minutes per day, after you are done with your daily routine, you might have to just **** around for 5 to 10 minutes. I am sure the claustrophobic vibes were intentional, but it actually got to me in a real way, I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable because of the short walking distance. I like how the game went from being very moody in a negative way, to also being very lighthearted. Later in the game, you get to interact with other people through the mail which was a highlight of the narrative - l think their responses felt very natural, except maybe for the "email" guy, that one was kinda forced. Each character has an interesting look at their situation and in general, I think the game has good writing. Surprisingly, there are a lot of sweet and funny moments as well. The game is around 10 hours give or take, but there are a lot of things that could potentially confuse you, and it's not always clear what the next step is. The ending that I picked was rather short, but I think it's appropriate for the story, and I don't really mind that it still has some unanswered questions. My personal playthrough had various technical issues, some of them have been fixed, that said, I am not confident that game will not have any potential softlocks, granted you can generally fix them by fully exiting the game and reloading. Taking everything into consideration, there is not much I can nitpick in terms of the story, if the game itself was not somewhat disjointed with the progression, I think the actual narrative is enjoyable from start to finish. [h1] Pros: [/h1] (+) Very moody, very atmospheric, unique vibes, and playful as well. (+) Actually solid narrative and world-building, interesting characters in the mailing list, just always something that makes you want to keep going. (+) More content than you might think, lots of variety like mini-games and stupid things you can buy. [h1] Feedback: [/h1] [u] Technical Issues/Triggers [/u] - To be fair, the developer fixed some of the big issues and I managed to complete the game, but I would not go as far as saying that you won't find any softlocks or crashes. Other than that, the game is a bit convoluted, like sometimes I did the right thing and I missed the event (I did the "gate" code correctly, and it didn't work so I wasted another 2 hours looking for something else) That feeling of "strange progression" was with me at least 30% of the game. Note that game takes about 20 seconds to load when you start a new game, if you click on it, select wait for the program, it should load (it's not stuck). If you do get the locked interaction bug, exiting the game and loading helps (right now in-game loading does not). [u] Currency [/u] - when you are making only 100 a day doing the job it sort of complements the oppressive universe, and then the arcades kick in where you can generate 50.000 in a day. I get you made it possible to buy things for progression, but it feels like it takes away from the settings, and instead of feeling like a very believable universe, it starts feeling like a meta game with exploits. I think in retrospect, the arcades should have been more risky, and the prices balanced to scale off your job, not arcade earnings. [b] Overall Thoughts: 7/10 [/b] I would say the narrative is just so playful if you could actually follow it without any problems. Still, the world-building and the carefully crafted interactions between the characters are so enjoyable, and often so sweet, clearly, a lot of love went into making it. Even with all of the problems, there is a cool game there, I think it's so overlooked, but hey, I'll play it alone if I have to, just like I live alone in my cell. [code]For more niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]